The other day, I was dealing with as much weird stuff as any person can
take. I needed to get away from work. My wife and I took the ten
minute trip that it takes to get to our favorite beach.
Having a beach ten minutes away is one of the advantages of living in Carteret County.
This is the take off point for the beach. It is the end of a board walk that brings you over most of the dunes. We usually leave our sandals on the bench and pick them up on the way out.
The day we went, we didn't run into a single person on the beach. We saw someone far down the beach exercising a couple of dogs, but that was it. We had the beach to ourselves. We enjoyed it for an hour and a half.
I waded out until the water was up to my knees. I was pleased that the water while cool was actually very pleasant. I splashed along the shore taking pictures and looking for fish while my wife tried to find a few shells to interest her.
As usual I took lots of pictures and posted a slide show of our adventure on the web shortly after we got home. It was a great afternoon on the beach.
However, the best part was when we left the beach. We sat down on the bench where we left our sandals to brush the sand off our feet. We could feel and hear the wind while sitting on the bench. Of course we could hear waves crashing in the background and the setting sun was beaming into our faces.
Then there was the occasional mournful sound of the wind whistling through one of the Bogue Inlet buoys.
We didn't talk about it, we just sat there and closed our eyes. It is actually hard to say how long we were on the bench but it was probably thirty to forty five minutes just feeling the wind and sun on our faces and listening the waves and the sounds of the beach.
I managed to practice some of those sleeping while sitting skills that I learned so well in chapel at McCallie School where I attended military school during high school.
It was actually really hard to rouse ourselves from the trance that had been created by the beach, wind, and sun.
When we did finally leave, we both agreed that our minds had been cleansed, and we were ready for a few more of life's challenges.
Given the way things are running, I am glad the beach is so close by.
